


I Can See Them Too

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Author uses too many commas, Gen, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Healing, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Thestrals, Trauma, also there's a lil harry/draco because i couldnt help myself but not enough to tag, dialogue? who is she?, healing by Not Thinking About It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25079629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The War affects everyone, and some things never change.Or: Draco and the Slytherins come back for 8th year, pet the thestrals, and gain a bit of hope for the world.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy & Pansy Parkinson
Kudos: 11





	I Can See Them Too

The Hogwarts Express swayed slightly, speeding down the familiar tracks. Draco looked out the window to the fields rushing past, brooding as per usual. Some things never change.  
Going back to Hogwarts was not an experience Draco thought he was entirely ready for. He remembered, for just a moment, the last time he was at the castle. _The Dark Lord’s sneering face, mocking, triumphant, his mother and father cowering behind him with grime on their faces, beckoning to him, rubble from the castle, his home, littered on the path, tripping him, the heat and stench of death, of powerful magic, Hogwarts crumbling behind him as he turns his back on it all._  
He should consider himself lucky that he’s not rotting in Azkaban with his father. Or confined to the house in both grief and court order like his mother. Draco should be thankful, more than that, to be granted the opportunity to learn and be out in the world. And Draco is thankful, but mostly he just feels numb.  
He misses his wand.  
Draco came back to himself just enough to realize the compartment was silent. Had been for awhile. Pansy sat curled against him, twirling a strand of her hair between two perfectly manicured nails, staring at the floor like it’s as interesting as a new Witch Weekly magazine. Blaise quickly tapped his foot against his other knee, a nervous habit he had supposedly given up in fourth year for some reason Draco doesn’t care to remember. Something about showing emotions plainly. Theo sat across from him, reading what seemed to be the seventh year textbook. Going into the newly created eighth year, figures he’d be catching up on the old material. Not like anyone from the previous year learned anything under the Carrows, only how to keep their mouths shut to avoid punishment. Well, Draco supposed that wasn’t quite true. Longbottom and a few other scattered individuals from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw never learned how to. But thinking of Longbottom and the outliers from the dreaded club in fifth year made him think of Potter, and how much things had changed, so Draco quickly stopped.  
Let it never be known the Malfoy’s don’t know how to protect themselves.  
Draco amused himself by playing with Pansy’s hair as she leaned to lay on his lap, and wondering on the odds of Goyle either crying in one of the bathrooms or antagonizing first years. Either way the man needed it, he had been antsy for weeks. Both that thought and Draco’s wariness of moving Pansy when she had gotten comfortable allowed him to let Goyle be.  
Soon enough the Hogwarts Express slowed to a stop, despite Draco’s (and he could assume his fellow Slytherins) protest. Draco paused for a moment, collecting himself, before rising primly to his feet. He looked down slightly to his friends, who still sat warily, clearly waiting for the shoe to drop. Draco straightened. The others stood and straightened as well.  
Let it not be said Slytherins are cowards, and the Malfoys are not leaders.  
Blaise, Theo, Pansy, Goyle, and Draco walked out of the train, heads held high.  
The first thing Draco noticed was Potter. Naturally. He looked… tired. Incredible as usual, hair artfully messy, red and gold tie slightly askew, but tired. The war gets to everyone, Draco rationalized, though somehow the thought hadn’t quite occurred to him before. The second thing he noticed, tearing his eyes away before Potter could see him staring, was the carriages. The carriages were odd due to being pulled by nothing, but otherwise ordinary in size, shape and color. Nothing of much interest and nothing to think about for too long. That was how Draco had thought of them for seven years. But now… creatures had appeared in front of them. Draco distantly heard gasps of surprise and alarm from his friends and other passerby, but he was too focused on the creatures to see who.  
They were black, winged, and skeletal looking, like they had been starved for months. Bones jutted out from it’s skin, including the bones around the eyes which also stuck out, milky white and unseeing. The creatures were fragile, he realized, but somehow carried such strength in their bearings that Draco thought if he were to attack the creatures, they could overpower him easily. He was violently reminded of the hippogriff from third year, and cringed away from the memory. Merlin, he was arrogant.  
The mystery creatures still continued to remind him of the hippogriff, but perhaps more of a pegasus now that he thought more. The pegasi are graceful, beautiful creatures, and though the mystery in front of him (when did he get so close?) were alarming at first glance, they were undoubtedly beautiful. Ethereal, even. He still couldn’t place their name, but they continued to remind him of the pegasi, if it were somehow undead-  
Draco stopped. Oh. A chill roused the hair on the back of his neck as he turned from the creatures- _thestrals_ and looked to the chosen one. He was staring back at him. Draco looked away. Of course.  
Draco turned to look at the thestral once again and tried desperately not to choke on the memories. _Bodies, bodies everywhere from both sides, he would recognize their faces if he looked hard enough but he refused to, he couldn’t die here in the grime and misery and Crabbe, Crabbe stupid dunderhead Crabbe who flunked defence in sixth year creating a monster and falling into it and screaming in pain and Draco didn’t stop, and a teacher from school, one he had seen but never studied under (muggle studies, his father did not approve, never approved of muggles, neither did the Dark Lord-) and Nagini the snake feeding on her lifeless body, others he had watched die as the Dark Lord tortured, watched his aunt, his family his friends himself-_  
Pansy wrapped an arm around him, pulling him away from the memories. He looked at her in gratitude and saw the same pain reflected in her eyes. She had seen it too. They all had.  
Draco forcibly collected himself once again, ~~he would not cry,~~ pulling pieces of himself back together as he tentatively walked towards the nearest thestral. Draco saw Pansy and Blaise trailing in his wake, going to see them as well, with Theo waiting behind. He had been able to see the thestrals before. Goyle dawdled next to Theo, an unreadable expression on his pasty face. Draco thought he heard low muttering from behind him, was that the boy Weasley?, and he straightened even further, prim as ever. He couldn’t care less what Weasley thought of them.  
When Draco got within reaching distance of the thestral, he paused. Draco had a habit of only learning what he was interested in, and he had never liked Care of Magical Creatures. Thestrals had also been a brief subject, not testing on them that year and only spending a day or two with them. All in all, he had no idea how to approach the creatures and would rather not get attacked again. He wrestled with the idea of bowing to it, wary of the golden trio behind him (the war may have changed him but he remained prideful,) but Blaise saved him by reaching out a hand to it with false confidence. The thestral gently butted into his hand, and seemed pleased when Blaise stroked it’s nose. Blaise smiled, just a bit, and Pansy did too at the look on his face.  
Cautiously and self- consciously, Draco reached a hand out and stroked its neck, giving Blaise some space, and slowly relaxed as he realized the creature wouldn’t harm him or that another student would yell at him for touching.  
The skin was leathery and wrinkled, but the skin between wrinkles was smooth and unhairy. He was reminded of the skin of an elf, minus the hair, but more... scaly. The thestral huffed into Blaise’s and Pansy’s palms, and Draco stepped back. It truly was beautiful, even as it shuffled back and forth, looking slightly confused. Draco wondered if the thestrals were more surprised or wary of going from two students in a class seeing them to the entire school.  
Draco turned from the creature to find that Potter had gone.  
In fact, looking around, the rest of the students had disappeared as well, from all ages. He turned to look at the line of carriages and watched in shock as each and every thestral had at least one student stroking it, petting it, looking at it in wonder or with tears in their eyes. Some both.  
The war had affected everyone.  
Draco looked back to the creature once again to see it looking at him with it’s milky eyes. Maybe not so blind then.  
Shaking himself out of his previous reverie, he nodded to Theo and Goyle to get inside the carriage as he followed suit. Sighing, Draco leaned his head back and continued his pose from before, head against the window, waiting for Pansy and Blaise to join them. He wanted to go out and pet the thestrals once again, but something held him back. Best not to push for the reason, he decided.  
A moment later the rest of their party gracefully got in and the thestrals began to move. Looking at them, no wonder it seemed as if the carriage moved on it’s own. The creatures moved so elegantly, feet barely touching the ground, there were no bumps or stops on the carriage’s way to the castle. Draco tore his eyes from the thestrals, instead looking to Hogwarts in trepidation. How would he react, seeing it once again? What would it look like after the destruction of the battle? He knew volunteer work was done over the summer to restore Hogwarts to its former glory, but he was unable to attend due to his court dates and intense guilt. Would it still be crumbling? Classes moved from not having a room, massive holes in the walls and staircases, the magic of the castle irrevocably damaged? Or would the castle look pristine. No holes or mistakes, blood, dirt and rubble spotlessly cleared away, restored exactly to how it had been. Draco couldn’t decide which was worse.  
He continued to fret, taking Pansy’s hand and watching the thestrals move to calm himself until they pulled up to the castle. At some point, Pansy’s hand had started to shake in his. Once again Draco stood first, paused, her hand still clasped in his, and strode out. Draco and the Slytherins held their heads high, sparing one last glance to the thestrals before making their way inside and to the Great Hall.  
Things were different. Part of the railing on the main banister had fallen away, leaving the nubs of marble behind. The windows were tinged slightly with a grey color, no longer letting in the vast amount of light the same way as they did before. Draco looked down after noticing those details, breathing carefully. As he arrived in the Great Hall, he briefly looked up, then was astonished by the ceiling. The starry sky glimmered, twice as beautiful as he remembered it to be. Under the Carrows, they had charmed the ceiling to show only a cloudy grey, a depressing sight that set the mood for the year. He saw the ceiling restored, cheerfully glittering above, and it weirdly enough gave him hope that his final year could be more than a complete shitshow.  
Instinctively, he searched for Potter at the Gryffindor table and found him after a moment, talking quietly with the muggleborn girl. Some things never change.  
Draco looked to the ceiling, and thought of the thestrals. Then he thought of the banister. Then, of Pansy’s hand still stubbornly clasped in his.  
It’s just another year of Hogwarts, everything changed once again. But when does it not?

**Author's Note:**

> Me looking at the hope and promise of a good future in the ending: how did that get there  
> Jokes aside I had a good time, this being the first fanfic I’ve ever written. Funny how I had an idea for a plot and it gained its own.  
> Also I imagine that sometime after this thestrals are accepted into the wizarding world and cared for as a widespread movement, what with so many new people able to see and understand them now. The students of Hogwarts love to pay them visits so Mcgonagall has to Really Stress to students that you cannot go in the woods to say hello. Who knows, maybe Hagrid's first lesson is on thestrals and it’s everyone’s favorite lesson all year.  
> Also also it occurred to me halfway in that draco likely saw voldemort kill someone over the summer of sixth year, meaning he would have seen them in seventh year, but canon is fake already so


End file.
